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Nathan Archer is a Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Chicago, and a forensic historian who believes that Leonardo Da Vinci created a perfect copy of the Sindon, the burial cloth of Christ known as the Shroud of Turin. Citing an unpaid commission by the House of Savoy to paint a replica, he searches for proof that the renaissance master employed techniques that took four centuries to discover the faded image of the crucified Jesus.
Divorced by his wife and ridiculed by his peers for what many feel does not take into account its biblical timeline, Archer travels with Sindonologist Amanda Wilkes across Europe at the request of a stranger who insists that he can help them solve the riddle of the Holy Grail, and the fate of the last Knights Templar. What they discovered at the ruins of the Temple of Solomon is bound up with the flight of Joseph of Arimathea from Jerusalem.
Everywhere they turn, colleagues are dying or revealing themselves to be something other than what they truly are. No one is to be trusted, as Archer and Wilkes are accused of crimes committed just before or after they find another clue. Others pursuing them will stop at nothing to fulfill biblical prophecy, and bring about the end of the world. The only way the two experts can stop them is to discover the truth about its origins, and prevent its theft.
